I am not a sports fan, but I am surrounded by them and seem to have learned some minor sports-related details, especially Phillies-related details, by osmosis.

My Closest Companion, you see, is a major Phillies fan. Has been for years.

She and her friend, Wilma, comprise the nucleus of a group of Phlyin’ Hawaiians (I know, it’s not spelled that way, but it ought to be), the Shane Victorino fan group. You’ve seen them at games, resplendent in colorful Hawaiian shirts and plastic leis, brandishing various and sundry accoutrements of Shane worship or Phillies fandom.

Despite the fact that my Closest Companion may at any time during October baseball sport a temporary Phillies tattoo on her left cheek, or take off on a mission to purchase a new T-shirt or cap — thanks to her, I had a World Series 2008 cap almost immediately last year — she remains a very gracious person.

I say that because L.A. Times writer T.J. Simers says Phillies’ fans are ugly. And to further infuriate them, he attacks the Phanatic, claiming the club mascot is violent.

Way down in his story, Simers says Philadelphia fans are “as ugly as any in the country.”

Simers doesn’t let it go there. He goes on to insult everybody in the region, sports fan or not.

“Nowhere in America are people more angry than those living here,” he writes.

He calls the Phanatic humorless and cites as violent skits the big green guy engaged in: boxing and punching an L.A. fan, smashing a Dodgers batting helmet to smithereens.

People here, Simers writes, “love a dash of violence with their sports entertainment.”

To which, I say: Oh, yeah?

Imagine, a writer saying bad things about an opposing team or its fans. It certainly isn’t very polite. If we here in Phillies’ land were really ugly, angry and violent, why — I could say some really ugly, angry and violent things.

Suppose I were to say that Dodgers fans are all hoity-toity, tea-and-crumpeteers, pinkie fingers raised as they quaff some Earl Grey and munch on watercress sandwiches?

Maybe the effete Dodgers have completely forgotten their Brooklyn roots and have become total Left Coast flakes.

Even if they are true, these would be terrible things for a writer to say.